Southwest Chief
| Name | Southwest Chief |
|---|---|
| Start | Los Angeles |
| End | Chicago |
| Distance | 2,265 Miles |
| Duration | 43 Hours |
| Creation | 1936 by Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, known as “The Train of the Stars”! |
August 25
We are off on our last multi-night segment of the trip! (Don’t worry, we still have an overnight from Chicago to DC.) The route starts out along the Los Angeles River. While this is certainly not the image I have in my mind of the archetypal “river”, it nevertheless looked familiar. I checked online and it is, in fact, the location of the Thunder Road race at the end of Grease!
We then passed through San Bernardino before nightfall.
Though we no longer have a roomette with complimentary meals, the mealtime views are still breathtaking.
Apparently we also rode passed the South Fire, but we did not see anything and Amtrak does not seem to be impacted.
There are some beautiful sights to be seen on this trip, but many are set for early in the morning tomorrow. Digging up our trusty old day/night map, we should be able to see bits of Arizona with daylight. Fingers crossed!
August 26
We started the day off with another beautiful sunrise, this time in Arizona.
The day/night map was right again: we passed through most of Arizona during the night and crossed into New Mexico shortly after sunrise. We were expecting beautiful views given what we saw yesterday, and we were not disappointed!
This time through New Mexico we passed through Albuquerque, and we stopped there for about half an hour giving us time to run off of the train and pick up a fresh dinner!
We also made a quick stop in Las Vegas, though we didn’t have time to leave the train.
Later in the afternoon we crossed into Colorado, though not the “canyonous” part we traveled through on the California Zephyr. Instead, we passed through the Front Range and saw some bison.
And we ended the day with yet another breathtaking sunset!
